Strange, inconceivable as it may appear to people of the great world and readers of newspapers, Mr. Prohack, C.B., had never in his life before been inside the Grand Babylon Hotel. Such may be the narrow and mean existence forced by circumstances upon secretly powerful servants of the Crown. He arrived late, owing to the intricate preparations of his wife and daughter for Charlie's luncheon1. These two were unsuccessfully pretending not to be nervous, and their nervousness reacted upon Mr. Prohack, who perceived with disgust that his gay and mischievous2 mood of the morning was slipping away from him despite his efforts to retain it. He knew now definitely that his health had taken the right turn, and yet he could not prod3 the youthful Sissie as he had prodded4 the youthful Mimi Winstock. Moreover Mimi was a secret which would have to be divulged5, and this secret not only weighed heavy within him, but seemed disturbingly to counterbalance the secrets that Charlie was withholding6.
On the present occasion he saw little of the Grand Babylon, for as soon as he mentioned his son's name to the nonchalant official behind the enquiry counter the official changed like lightning into an obsequious7 courtier, and Charles's family was put in charge of a hovering8 attendant boy, who escorted it in a lift and along a mile of corridors, and Charlie's family was kept waiting at a door until the voice of Charlie permitted the boy to open the door. A rather large parlour set with a table for five; a magnificent view from the window of a huge white-bricked wall and scores of chimney pots and electric wires, and a moving grey sky above! Charlie, too, was unsuccessfully pretending not to be nervous.
"Hullo, kid!" he greeted his sister.
"Hullo yourself," responded Sissie.
They shook hands. (They very rarely kissed. However, Charlie kissed his mother. Even he would not have dared not to kiss her.)
"Mater," said he, "let me introduce you to Lady Massulam."
Lady Massulam had been standing10 in the window. She came forward with a pleasant, restrained smile and made the acquaintance of Charlie's family; but she was not talkative. Her presence, coming as a terrific surprise to the ladies of the Prohack family, and as a fairly powerful surprise to Mr. Prohack, completed the general constraint11. Mrs. Prohack indeed was somewhat intimidated12 by it. Mrs. Prohack's knowledge of Lady Massulam was derived13 exclusively from The Daily Picture, where her portrait was constantly appearing, on all sorts of pretexts14, and where she was described as a leader of London society. Mr. Prohack knew of her as a woman credited with great feats15 of war-work, and also with a certain real talent for organisation16; further, he had heard that she had a gift for high finance, and exercised it not without profit. As she happened to be French by birth, no steady English person was seriously upset by the fact that her matrimonial career was obscure, and as she happened to be very rich everybody raised sceptical eyebrows17 at the assertion that her husband (a knight) was dead; for The Daily Picture implanted daily in the minds of millions of readers the grand truth that to the very rich nothing can happen simply. The whole Daily Picture world was aware that of late she had lived at the Grand Babylon Hotel in permanence. That world would not have recognised her from her published portraits, which were more historical than actual. Although conspicuously18 anti-Victorian she had a Victorian beauty of the impressive kind; she had it still. Her hair was of a dark lustrous19 brown and showed no grey. In figure she was tall, and rather more than plump and rather less than fat. Her perfect and perfectly20 worn clothes proved that she knew just how to deal with herself. She would look forty in a theatre, fifty in a garden, and sixty to her maid at dawn.
This important person spoke21, when she did speak, with a scarcely perceptible French accent in a fine clear voice. But she spoke little and said practically nothing: which was a shock to Marian Prohack, who had imagined that in the circles graced by Lady Massulam conversation varied22 from badinage23 to profundity24 and never halted. It was not that Lady Massulam was tongue-tied, nor that she was impolite; it was merely that with excellent calmness she did not talk. If anybody handed her a subject, she just dropped it; the floor around her was strewn with subjects.
The lunch was dreadful, socially. It might have been better if Charlie's family had not been tormented25 by the tremendous question: what had Charlie to do with Lady Massulam? Already Charlie's situation was sufficient of a mystery, without this arch-mystery being spread all over it. And inexperienced Charlie was a poor host; as a host he was positively26 pathetic, rivalling Lady Massulam in taciturnity.
Sissie took to chaffing her brother, and after a time Charlie said suddenly, with curtness28:
"Have you dropped that silly dance-scheme of yours, kid?"
Sissie was obliged to admit that she had.
"Then I tell you what you might do. You might come and live here with me for a bit. I want a hostess, you know."
"I will," said Sissie, straight. No consultation29 of parents!
This brief episode overset Mrs. Prohack. The lunch worsened, to such a point that Mr. Prohack began to grow light-hearted, and chaffed Charlie in his turn. He found material for chaff27 in the large number of newly bought books that were lying about the room. There was even the Encyclopaedia30 of Religion and Ethics31 in eleven volumes. Queer possessions for a youth who at home had never read aught but the periodical literature of automobilism! Could this be the influence of Lady Massulam? Then the telephone bell rang, and it was like a signal of salvation32. Charlie sprang at the instrument.
"For you," he said, indicating Lady Massulam, who rose.
"Oh!" said she. "It's Ozzie."
"Who's Ozzie?" Charlie demanded, without thought.
"No doubt Oswald Morfey," said Mr. Prohack, scoring over his son.
"He wants to see me. May I ask him to come up for coffee?"
"Oh! Do!" said Sissie, also without thought. She then blushed.
Mr. Prohack thought suspiciously and apprehensively33:
"I bet anything he's found out that my daughter is here."
Ozzie transformed the final act of the luncheon. An adept34 conversationalist, he created conversationalists on every side. Mrs. Prohack liked him at once. Sissie could not keep her eyes off him. Charlie was impressed by him. Lady Massulam treated him with the familiarity of an intimate. Mr. Prohack alone was sinister35 in attitude. Ozzie brought the great world into the room with him. In his simpering voice he was ready to discuss all the phenomena36 of the universe; but after ten minutes Mr. Prohack noticed that the fellow had one sole subject on his mind. Namely, a theatrical37 first-night, fixed38 for that very evening; a first-night of the highest eminence39; one of Mr. Asprey Chown's first-nights, boomed by the marvellous showmanship of Mr. Asprey Chown into a mighty40 event. The competition for seats was prodigious41, but of course Lady Massulam had obtained her usual stall.
"What a pity we can't go!" said Sissie simply.
"Will you all come in my box?" astonishingly replied Mr. Oswald Morfey, embracing in his weak glance the entire Prohack family.
"The fellow came here on purpose to fix this," said Mr. Prohack to himself as the matter was being effusively42 clinched43.
"I must go," said he aloud, looking at his watch. "I have a very important appointment."
"But I wanted to have a word with you, dad," said Charlie, in quite a new tone across the table.
"Possibly," answered the superior ironic44 father in Mr. Prohack, who besides being sick of the luncheon party was determined45 that nothing should interfere46 with his Median and Persian programme. "Possibly. But that will be for another time."
"Well, to-night then," said Charlie, dashed somewhat.
"Perhaps," said Mr. Prohack. Yet he was burning to hear his son's word.
II
However, Mr. Prohack did not succeed in loosing himself from the embraces of the Grand Babylon Hotel for another thirty minutes. He offered to abandon the car, to abandon everything to his wife and daughter, and to reach his next important appointment by the common methods of conveyance47 employed by common people; but the ladies would permit no such thing; they announced their firm intention of personally escorting him to his destination. The party seemed to be unable to break up. There was a considerable confabulation between Eve and Lady Massulam at the entrance to the lift.
Mr. Prohack noticed anew that Eve's attitude to Lady Massulam was still a flattering one. Indeed Eve showed that in her opinion the meeting with so great a personage as Lady Massulam was not quite an ordinary episode in her simple existence. And Lady Massulam was now talking with a free flow to Eve. As soon as the colloquy48 had closed and Eve had at length joined her simmering husband in the lift, Charlie must have a private chat with Lady Massulam, apart, mysterious, concerning their affairs, whatever their affairs might be! In spite of himself, Mr. Prohack was impressed by the demeanour of the young man and the mature blossom of womanhood to each other. They exhibited a mutual49 trust; they understood each other; they liked each other. She was more than old enough to be his mamma, and yet as she talked to him she somehow became a dignified50 girl. Mr. Prohack was disturbed in a manner which he would never have admitted,—how absurd to fancy that Lady Massulam had in her impressive head a notion of marrying the boy! Still, such unions had occurred!—but he was pleasantly touched, too.
Then Oswald Morfey and Sissie made another couple, very different, more animated51, and equally touching52. Ozzie seemed to grow more likeable, and less despicable, under the honest and frankly53 ardent54 gaze of Miss Prohack; and Mr. Prohack was again visited by a doubt whether the fellow was after all the perfectly silly ass9 which he was reputed to be.
In the lift, Lady Massulam having offered her final adieux, Ozzie opened up to Mrs. Prohack the subject of an organisation called the United League of all the Arts. Mr. Prohack would not listen to this. He hated leagues, and especially leagues of arts. He knew in the marrow55 of his spine56 that they were preposterous57; but Mrs. Prohack and Sissie listened with unfeigned eagerness to the wonderful tale of the future of the United League of all the Arts. And when, emerging from the lift, Mr. Prohack strolled impatiently on ahead, the three stood calmly moveless to converse59, until Mr. Prohack had to stroll impatiently back again. As for Charlie, he stood by himself; there was leisure for the desired word with his father, but Mr. Prohack had bluntly postponed60 that, and thus the leisure was wasted.
Without consulting Mr. Prohack's wishes, Ozzie drew the ladies towards the great lounge, and Mr. Prohack at a distance unwillingly61 after them. In the lounge so abundantly enlarged and enriched since the days of the celebrated62 Felix Babylon, the founder63 of the hotel, post-lunch coffee was merging58 into afternoon tea. The number of idle persons in the world, and the number of busy persons who ministered to them, and the number of artistic64 persons who played voluptuous65 music to their idleness, struck Mr. Prohack as merely prodigious. He had not dreamed that idleness on so
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